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leave the baby in that institution. Actually, she does not need to care of her. She does not even have a relationship with Phoebe. She can leave her anywhere she
wants. That should not be her business. Yet, Caroline does not have a heart to do that because she is a responsible person. David Henry has trusted her to bring her
in the institution. She will never do any actions before discussing it first to David Henry. She would rather take Phoebe to her house and get the solution for the next
step. She picked her way through the slush, afraid of falling and hurting the
baby, thinking at the same time, fleetingly, how easy it would be to simply leave her, in a garbage Dumpster or on the steps of a church or anywhere.
Her power over this tiny life was total. A deep sense of responsibility flooded through her, making her light-headed. 42
One year after she started her life with Phoebe, she is glad to know that Phoebe is still fine. Sometimes, Phoebe is worrying because of her immune system. Day by
day, Caroline learns how to be a good mother to Phoebe. She has loved Phoebe just like her own child. Caroline is also amazed to herself for hanging on in a new
place by working as a companion for an old man, named Leo March. “More than once this year she’d started awake to find herself standing and Phoebe,
miraculously, still safe in her arms” 114.
c. Caroline’s Need for Having a Good Relationship with Others
She has grown up to be someone who only could remember some parts of her childhood. It is not because her difficulties in getting some friends. Her
parents are over protective to have her with them. She is the only child they have and they waited so long for it. It would be very hard for little Caroline to grow as
a normal child who play around with some friends and do not care about the
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diseases they could get. It really influenced her to be a lonely girl until she grew up to be lonely woman. “Her childhood had been solitary, sometimes very lonely,
but still she had these memories: a special quilt held close, a rug with roses beneath her feet, the weave of voices that belonged to her alone” 31.
She gets used to live alone until she is in her thirties. One day, there is an old man mourning his wife after twenty years of her death. Touching by his story,
Caroline realizes her loneliness. She is doubt when she died there would be someone who did the same thing like this old man did.
“She’s lovely,” Caroline said. Her hands were trembling. Because she was moved by his love and his sorrow, because no one had ever loved her with
this same passion. Because she was almost thirty years old, and yet if she died the next day there would be no one to mourn her like Rupert Dean
still mourned his wife after more than twenty years. Surely she, Caroline Loraine Gill, must be as unique and deserving of love as the woman in the
old man’s photo, and yet she had not found any way to reveal this, not through art or love or ever though the fine high calling of her work. 33
Al, the man that she knows when he gives her a ride, has looked for her new place. Al seems so serious to find Caroline and Phoebe. As a truck driver, he is
used to pass across so many cities. He asks many people in many places to get a little clue about Caroline and Phoebe. This story is very amazing for Caroline. No
one has gone this far to meet her. Caroline couldn’t answer. There was pleasure at the sight of him but a
great confusion too. For nearly a year she had not let herself think too long or too hard about the life she had left, but now it rose up with great force
and intensity: the scent of cleaning fluid and sun in the waiting room and the way it felt to come home to her tranquil, orderly apartment after a long
day, fix herself a modest meal, and sit down for the evening with a book. She had given up those pleasures willingly; she had embraced this change
out of some deep unacknowledged yearning. Now her heart was pounding, and she stared wildly down the alley, as if she might suddenly see David
Henry too. 131
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Al’s care and attention does not assure Caroline that he is the man that she is waiting for. Dorothy March helps her to know her own feeling to Al. Deep of her
heart, she falls in love with him. It is just everything is not that simple. She is worried that Al only loves Phoebe and not Caroline. Then, she realizes that she
cannot cover her real feeling to Al. “We’re just close friends, Al and I. It’s not that easy.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” Doro said.”Nothing’s simpler.” So it was love,
Caroline thought 204. The existence of Phoebe lifts her up. To be honest, she is bored with her
life which has nothing to catch for. It has been a long time since she wanted to leave far from where she lives. She needs something new to work with. Taking
care of Phoebe, moving far away from her city, meeting new people and new problems, give her very big pleasure to be passed. She never thinks if Phoebe is
taken back by David Henry or Norah. She would never let that happened. She already finds her new purpose in her life and promises not to fail anymore. This
girl, Phoebe, helps her to find back her desire of struggling on something special that she could get.
Now her heart was pounding, and she stared wildly down the alley, as if she might suddenly see David Henry too. This, she understood suddenly,
was why she had never sent that letter. What if he wanted Phoebe back
―or Norah did? The possibility filled her with an excruciating rush of fear. 131
Al is too busy to spend his time in the street. Since he became the truck driver, he is home on for a couple of days in a week. As a wife, Caroline needs more times
for her and Phoebe. Her wish is simple. She just wants Al to be her side. “What she wanted, more than anything, was to have breakfast with him every morning
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and dinner every night; to wake with him in bed beside her, not in some anonymous hotel room a hundred or five hundred miles away” 435.
Caroline states her need for affiliation when she is worried about Phoebe who wants to get married to a down syndrome man, named Robert. She cannot
imagine Phoebe to be independent and have another life with Robert. It is not about Phoebe who has not ready to build a family, but it is about Caroline who
has not ready to be leaved by Phoebe. Murray 1964 stated that in our cultures, it is less acceptable for a male to be dependent and to seek the comfort of others.
But in some cases, there would be possibility for men to be more dependent than women p. 104. It depends on how they passed their childhood and the
surroundings treated them. Caroline should not be worried about Phoebe because she will learn many things when she gets married. “She stared at the crown
molding, thinking it needed painting, while a difficult truth struggled to the surface. “I can’t imagine my life without her,” she said softly 442.” This worry
comes up from Caroline thinking. Smith 1992 noted that some general observations suggest that the parents of affiliation-motivated children put more
emphasis on close family ties and conformity to parental authority. For her, the unity of her family means everything. She never imagines to live separately from
Phoebe. The affiliative motivation is defined as the desire to establish, maintain, or
restore warm relationships with other people Smith, 1992, p. 53. Her attraction to David Henry is a drive coming from inside her heart, which misses the love
from others.
